I have the prettiest bicycle on the entire planet. No... make that the sexiest bicycle in the entire solar system. It's coloured a rich striking blue of copper sulphate with a metallic sleek grey accent. It's an aerodynamically designed complex machine with precision gears and a derailleur that looks as if it might be a futuristic part that broke away from the Kibo module. You lay your eyes on it and you know that you just want to ride it.

ALAS, appearances can be deceptive. The deception, in this case, is that I (the most non-mechanically oriented freak there ever was and will be on the planet) put it together! That means that the brake pads are not evenly spaced from the wheel. They rub and grate on the wheel every time I try to cycle. The sound that emanates resembles a sickening friction rub of... well, a warped brake assembly. I have tried many many tricks and tactics to make them not behave in this bizarre manner but as can be expected, I am having no luck fixing them.

Does any (e:strip)per have a fair idea about how to rectify this brackish situation? Do they know of any person or establishment within walking distance of downtown (~2-3 miles) who can take a look at my bike and tell me what I need to do, without charging $45... oh, and is likely to be available on a Saturday or a Sunday??!!

My ghost-of-the-biking-future shall be eternally grateful for any ideas, hints, directions, general advice etc..
-TP

(**this is where you think of someone and enthusiastically type away comments to this post. NUDGE NUDGE. Ahem.**)

A HUMONGOUS blackish dragonfly flew into our office today morning. I had the official freakout of the year. I ran out promptly, slammed the door to the corridor and shut my officemate in the office with the ginormous dragonfly. I am SO not the ideal officemate. He probably hates me now. I couldn't help it!! Metallic loud buzzing coming from a HUGE insect that FLIES is very disconcerting. I believe I was reading about genomic mutations when it made its royal loud entry through the window. I admit that the subject matter may have had some effect on the insanity level of my freakout.

It looked somewhat like this:


My department administrator was in the corridor for some reason and I dragged her into my office. I think I might have coerced her into climbing the table and chasing the dragonfly out the window using a yoghurt box (that smelled like some very good coffee from Guercio's, in case you were interested.)

After it left, I googled it and initially thought that it might have been the Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea), but a friend who saw it up close didn't notice any blue on its body or colourful markings.


OR it could be the Giant Dragonfly - Petalura gigantea. The article says that two species exist in North America. The picture above is from this page:

Or it could be this species from Malaysia - Tetragynacantha plagiata. Do you think someone brought it in their suitcase from somewhere??


It blows my mind on many levels.
a) That could have been an ENDANGERED species we chased out!!
b) It could have been a bonafide Malaysian or Australian insect!!
c) We could have caught it and donated it to the zoo/or the local insect greenhouse!!
d) Damn, that was ONE TOTALLY ridiculous officemate alienating freakout.
e) Yep. I still hate metallic buzzing flying HUGE insects. They can ONLY be one of these adjectives... NOT ALL!! That is just unfair! Arrgh.

Three years back, I didn't wear jeans or trousers on a daily basis. I never wore less than 3 colours at a time. My daily dress was a salwar kameez.


It's a sort of fluid adaptable dress that comes to your rescue if you want to be ultra formal or ultra casual. But then I became a grad student here in the US. The cultural change has been massive. I not only went the unkempt daily-jeans route, but also turned completely monocolour. I have no idea how this happened. I look at my wardrobe and all I can see is miles and miles of:


WHAT THE HELL?? I had all the colours in the rainbow and additionally, several other vivid and wild shades in my wardrobe. I seem to be trapped in blue-scale now, too fashion-unconscious to get out.

Anyway, that is only a tangential point of the story. (Yeah, leave it to me to start at a tangent!) With the change in attire, new hair-splitting avenues have popped up. I never had to deal with the alien concept of SIZES before.

Three years back, my idea of trousers was a multi-pleated billowing cotton/satin/silk salwar worn under a long kameez (hindi/urdu for shirt). I guess that explained why I ended up picking size 12 jeans and ended up looking like the next-door rap star/pimp in my first year here. I had enough of the whole hanging-by-mere-faith-and-nothing-else-on-your-booty style the next year and went for a comfortable size 10. Last christmas, I was still comfortable at 8. Yesterday, I found out that for a pair of shorts to fit well and not look like a tent and yet be comfortable, they need to be size 6.

Did I just drop SIX sizes over the past two years?????? Considering, my weight has been constantly hovering at same figure over these said two years, the size drop is highly suspect. Apart from my perception of what a trouser should be, nothing else has changed. I think it would be safe to say that I have been tricked by vanity sizing. After my initial fascination with the in-da-hood baggy style, I have been the same size. It is just called "10" at walmart, "8" at old navy and "6" at Dots. Does it then mean that the more "upscale" a shop gets the more abridged their size-chart? Are these stores pandering to the egos of their respective clienteles?

The sizing mystery doesn't end at clothes. It extends to shoes. I am 7.0 in timberland, 5.0 in Hush-Puppies, 5.5 in adidas and 6.0 in reebok. Does this in some way reflect the average shoe size of the customers of these shoe-brands? Are marketing ploys employed to carefully profile the average customer and make them feel better.. for eg. if you are a die-hard hiker, you probably don't want to be told that you have feet sized similar to a dainty Japanese lady across the planet.

Well, in all their planning, they obviously left me out. This crazy sizing is driving me nuts and I am confused like hell. I am like an electron at many different places - stretched out from sizes 6 to 10 and my feet are nebulous clouds of feet-matter from 5.5 to 7.0. I am not vain. I am a size-monster.



Hahahaa... if you thought I looked like the girl in the salwar kameez, the vain joke is on you, sucker!

Hey Felly and Lauren,

Is this what you do Wednesday evenings on the floor above the art shop on Main Street?!!!???



Consider me bowled over! :)

In an interesting experiment today, I made dinner in 20 minutes flat set to some heavy metal goodness. The recipe is as follows:

~--Prologue: Witchery->> Fast as a Shark (Accept Cover)--~
Chop/Prep Veggies
Boil water, Turn off, Add cous cous. Set aside.

~--Body: Barilari->> Amo de la Oscuridad--~

To 1 tablespoon of peanut oil
Add a pinch of cumin
Add 4-5 small thai red chillies (chopped), saute for 10 seconds
Add julienned onions, saute for a minute
Add salt, pinch of turmeric powder, a pinch of black pepper powder
and a pinch of coriander powder
Add chopped Zucchini and saute for a minute
Add chopped carrot and sweet peas, saute for a minute

~--Epilogue: Grave Digger->> King Pest--~
Add cous cous and salt to taste
Stir Stir Stir

~--Conclusion: Deep Purple->> Rat Bat Blue--~
Dinner is Served!


;) ~--Postscript: Motorhead->> Smiling like a killer--~ ;)

So, get this! I work on the same floor and in fact, the same department as another (e:strip)per (yeah, not imk2. We are at WAR.) and I didn't know this for a WHOLE of three months!!!!

I was lounging in his cool office-space the other day and I noticed this very familiar picture on the desk. I thought it was (e:jim). When I looked closely, it wasn't (e:jim) but I was convinced it was his brother or some cousin. So I bust into the same office today and point to the picture and ask, is the last name of that bloke in the picture, Lindley? He goes, "No, why?" I blabber on and on about how I know this Jim who is totally like that person in the picture. He exclaims, "That Jim who does all the cool photos etc.". I nod and then he says, " Hey! Do you know Paul Visco, who works in the Washington Building". I then take over and rattle off a string of (e:Roswell)-Rippers, and he says, "Yeah, I know most of them". And then it dawns on me and I ask, "WHO ARE YOU??" Turns out its none other than (e:boxerboi), that avatar with the hot red Tee, the sun-shades and the uber cool back pack!

So I guess Buffalo is a tiny world and all cool (e:strip)pers do work at Roswell*. Haha. :)

PS: *Yeah, (e:imk2), you don't get mentioned. I don't care if you wear the most amazing clothes and see niche movies. You absolutely withheld important information. So, we are officially at war. ;)

The votes are in. I put in my ballot for another year at the building with the hollow lions, terrible heating and lukewarm water.

Here's why. Living in and around Linwood has suddenly become very fashionable. Rumours abound that it is going to become the next gated community north of California. The direct effect of such hearsay and feigned snobbishness of the neighbourhood are crazy rents.

I spent four days hunting for livable and affordable flats around the place and frankly, I am so overwhelmed that I have reached a state of compromise where I think that $600/month may not be too unreasonable a price to pay for a simple studio! Though I have signed on the dotted line for yet another 365 and 1/4th of a day of lukewarm shower-serfdom at the Mayflower, it still seems quite outrageous to me that I managed to find no other place half as reasonable as my building!

The rundown of the hunt (and these were perhaps the only flats available within my budget range):

1. Target at Summer and Linwood (Not my building): Horrible smelly carpet with stains. Yuck. No more carpet tyranny in my life. Ever. Wouldn't live on a carpet even for free. I am done with carpets for life.

2. Target further down Allen: $400 without utilities. $300/month for utilities for the whole of the winter. So essentially $750/month including internet and everything. For a grad student, this is financial suicide. Unless I want to live on Ramen Noodles and spend my time coupon clipping. Which, by the way, I don't because it also happens to be the perfect recipe for depression.

3. Target on Franklin: AWESOME one-bedroom flat. Maintained like a dream. Even smelled nice! Landlord: a gem of a person. $440 a month. The catch, you ask? 9Ft ceilings and thus, $300/month utilities. Same Ramen Noodle issue as above. I pass. (If anyone is interested, and can afford this, I can give you the landlord's contact.)

4. Multiple targets in Hotel Lenox: The one bedroom flat had a bleak and lifeless view from its windows with a kitchen thrown in as an afterthought into a dark corridor of the flat. Another studio had a kitchen with no windows. Call me conceited and spoiled, but to me, the kitchen is the most important room in a house. It's a room where love is grown, happiness is concocted, nostalgia is stirred, music is dreamed up, dances are brewed, ideas are born and orgasms are perfected. The lack of windows and natural light in a kitchen is more abominable than anything else. I retract my earlier statement about the carpet. A kitchen without windows is the living hell I don't want to venture into. Ever.

5. Target on Irving: Nice flat with the blinds drawn. If you are okay with staring at a collection of assorted trashcans from around the neighbourhood and the wall of your neighbour's house 3 feet away, this flat may be perfect for you. It certainly would make me hasten to the first airplane headed back home.

6. The best arrangement of 'em all: Living with (e:Drew) and (e:Janelle). Awesome house, pets I never owned (and probably never will) but have always wanted, ONE-HELL-OF-AN-AMAZING cook (yeah, I mean (e:janelle). Sorry, (e:drew). I have no proof of your culinary skills. ;)) to cook with, lower than crazy rent (in fact, unreasonably so), and best of all, living with one of the coolest (e:strip)pers around!!! But (and isn't there always one? :( ) they live on Lexington. For my lazy and erratic grad student ways, the dream ends there.

I get up barely 1/2 hour before I have to make it to work, walk/run like crazy down the streets and reach at the nick of time. Sometimes, I don't come back till 3:00 AM. No matter how hard I try, I keep slipping into these irregular hours and last minute marathon spells. I delude myself that all this counts towards my exercise regimen (that is non-existent, BTW) Living in a flat very near work acts as a buffer to all these random acts of craziness. I can afford to not be dependent on any transport but my own and also afford to not own a car. So, even though I am TRULY tempted by their offer, I can't take them up on it. I know that the solution is more discipline. But currenly this is in severe short-supply. :/

So yes, there is indeed, no such thing as a perfect flat. There are always kinks and cracks, virtual or otherwise. The tact is to whine and blog about them till they sort of go away from your consciousness.

It will be a whole year since I moved into Buffalo, next month. A leap year with an extra day, no less. Unbelievable. One year has gone by and it seems so unreal. I swear time went by faster here than any time or any place I have lived.

The management stuck the extended-lease agreement to the milk box on my door today morning and its time to reconsider whether I want to live here or not. Let's see:

Pros:
1. It does have a nuclear shelter. Though, I imagine 97 households huddled in the basement with noisy washers, dryers and a spooky gaping hole while the city is being nuclear-bombed might not be so much fun as it is chalked up to be.

2. I don't need to hang up any curtains. Come on, spiderman and superman are not real, kids.

3. The floors are hardwood and shiny. I found a dead flattened mummified mouse under the carpet in my last flat. I suspect it is still there, because as we all know, mummies are best left undisturbed. Carpets are thus modern equivalents of the pyramids. Q.E.D. I hate carpets.

4. I can hear the police sirens at odd times. Believe it or not, it makes it feel like home.

5. My calves have been conditioned pretty nicely this past year, without having to invest in a stairmaster. I just need to figure out why my lungs can't take to stair-climbing as easily as my calves can. Puzzling.


Cons:
1. The leechy management hiked the rent by $30 - takes it to >$600 with utilities. Money doesn't really grow on trees as the BMG seems to think. (BMG is the management company.)

2. The heating is disastrously bad. But its summer now and I can't recall how bad it was.

3. I think I have too much junk. Living in the same flat for more than a year is injurious to the Simple Pliny Project. The idea is to be nomadic enough to get rid of *everything* unessential.

Not many cons. I remembered that moving also involves actually finding another flat so I went for a walk around the neighbourhood and learned some useful things:

a) Hotel Lenox is also an apartment complex. Imagine the cool factor in being able to tell people that you actually *live* in a hotel. You could also constantly claim that you really haven't made your mind up about Buffalo yet.

b) The Westbrooks Apartments has a restaurant in the building - called Amaryllis. Hmmm... I wonder how it is for the residents. Honey, its time for dinner. I think they are serving baked crab with crumbled feta cheese downstairs.

c) The residents who live in "the North" park in a parking on North and Park streets. Sweet.

d) Is the building across from the massage clinic on North (with the anti-war signage) empty? I couldn't tell. If it is indeed occupied, then the tenants/owner have an odd knack of using billboard ads as curtains.

The Question lingers. I have four days to decide before the rent goes up $40. Aaargh. Tyrants.

I am going to be working on Rule 49 from this minute.
49. Develop Equanimity.

The unfortunate fact is I am not. Either cool or even a cucumber. I care too much about everything. I care about everyone around me to the point of interfering in their affairs and offering my opinions. I think its time to stop. Completely grind to a no-opinion, cucumber stop.

My inspiration will aptly be, a CUCUMBER.
Eight alphabets. Eight rules.


Let's see.

It remains a Cucumber.
1. All these rules are not applicable to my family. I will interfere,
judge, argue and be a pain. Nopes, *you* don't escape. HEHE.

It's crUnchy!
2. If situations are chewing on me, then I shall remember the crunch of this post. Keep calm. Drink more water. Remain silent.

It's a Creeper and takes the shape of the trellis that guides it.
3. I shall go with the flow and not interfere with anyone's lives, decisions, opinions and practices. If it is their wish, its their wish alone. It does not concern me.

It has tons of entrapped cucumber jUice.
4. I shall drink more water and cool down. Every time I am irked I shall take the divine opportunity to take a detour to the water cooler and drink some water instead of speaking.

It is Mute.
5. I shall not be offering my opinions anymore, unless I am asked. I shall be silent. Your business is your business alone. Not mine. At all.

Its pollinated by Bumblebees, but only if released into the cucumber field at the proper time.
6. My help and opinions shall be available anytime, and all the time. BUT only if you ask. Not otherwise. I don't want to be sorry that I gave you both but you didn't want them anyway.

Its grEen outside and a delicate shade of the lightest green inside.
7. Err... that means I should be jealous sick calm. Yes, calm. No matter what kind of volcanoes are exploding around me.

Its a gReat balancing sandwich component.
8. I shall not judge you whatever you do. Not because I don't care but because I shall respect your right to be who you are and what you want to do plus I don't want to be sorry that I judged you and it was because of my prejudices and beliefs.



Progress report:
1. Did not email much.
2. Working on summaries to (e:chico). One on time, but slipped on 3.
3. Planning to put the lunch/7:00 AM work plan into action this week.
4. Took a hiatus. Three days of:
19. Do what you love. I walked and enjoyed sunshine. I cooked!

55. Learn to do nothing. Haha. I didn't have to learn this. But I put it into practice. I used the freed up time to do nothing. And I loved it!

44. Try living without a car. Alright. I don't have one anyway and this is cheating, but hey this is the 72 day plan. I need all the mileage I can get (irony totally intended).


~End of day Seven~
The Simple Pliny Project

I went for a walk through Buffalo's breath-takingly beautiful and sunny downtown today and spotted a delightful new chocolate coffee shop - Chow Chocolat. It opened this week. Their floor is so beautiful, that you want to dance on it. Romantic/classical period piano was wafting through the store.

The chef was at the counter and told me that they were waiting for their espresso machine. Come next week, Chow Chocolat will have delicious espresso, tasty salads, rich veggie (and other) sandwiches as well as signature spinach creations. I checked online and Buffalo Rising seems to have done a feature on this shop:


I know they will have tasty food because the chef described the salads and sandwiches to me in detail, and his eyes lit up and danced while he was talking about them. I think anyone who is so passionate about food and cooking cannot go wrong.

I admit I may have been a bit distracted because the chef is a splitting image of Johnny Depp (In movies: Chocolat + Blow + Pirates of the Caribbean). He gave me chocolate samples and I couldn't quite think straight after that. I didn't even check out the prices, as I usually do! I had to force myself not to get coffee and sit there gazing at him. Lucky is the girl (or guy) who has him. He has the world's most charming smile, long luxurious locks, plus he cooks and works at a chocolate store! How good can it possibly get?? :)

Chef Johnny Depp: The bloke in the tie in the picture. From:


On afterthought, I think employing him might have been intentional; or at least making him do the whole Johnny Depp look. After all, if you are named Chow Chocolat, who better to employ than the hot chocolaty Johnny Depp. Hmmm... I wonder if the counter will be manned by Juliette Binoche when Johhny is cooking in the kitchen...

I can't wait to go back! :)